A Dynasty Lost
Wrestling over the years has featured many innovative and unique ideas from the three way dance to fatal four ways, but it was wrestling's first match that involved more then two men that would capture an audience. In 1901, the first tag team matches were held in San Francisco with the novel idea of upping entertainment appeal of the show. While the idea worked in San Fran, it took awhile to sweep the nation and wasn't widely accepted until the 1930's. Now-a-days tag team matches are apart of every show.
Tag team wrestling started out as a novel idea and became its own tradition that would last up until this day, niching out its own history and defining title reigns. While tag team wrestling is still popular and solid in Japan and Mexico, it seems that in the United States tag team wrestling has faded into obscurity. While still practiced in many independent federations, tag team wrestling has somewhat lost that aura it used to have. While watching SmackDown! this week, I couldn't help but feel a little excited about The PitBulls (Jamie Noble & Kid Kash) taking on Brian Kendrick & Paul London. While all four are legitimate and great singles competitors, the thought of two actual tag teams slugging it out on a world wide Pay-Per-View got me excited and made me wonder why isn't there more of it? It's simple; there are no real tag teams left and the allure to be in a tag team is virtually non existent.
If you take a trip through history (come on people; get in that time machine with me), tag teams would room together, train together, and travel together. What this effectively did was create an understanding between the two wrestlers and formed them into a real tag team. In today's wrestling, promoters will stick two guys together and give them matching tights and that supposedly makes them a tag team, which only works to an extent. If the two guys in the team don't have a legitimate bond, it simply does not translate into the ring. When you think of great tag teams, you often think of them as a unit rather then as individuals, for example The Rock N Roll Express and The Road Warriors. In my opinion, to be thought of as just a unit should be the goal of a tag team, and the only way that can be created as by acting as unit almost like a couple (please no homo comments). Another hurdle tag team wrestling has faced as of late is that for whatever reason, there is no desire for athletes to be in tag teams unless they are told to team by the promoters. This could be attributed to selfishness, ego, or whatever you like, but the desire of two guys to team up and want to be the greatest tag team is something that you don't hear of too often these days. Tag team wrestling may be in a sad state now-a-days, but I do see positive signs such as TNA forming a solid tag team division, which I think is a brilliant thing for their product and is also something they should try to excel at to help divide them from the WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment unfortunately has two sets of tag team titles, which I think really hurts the division simply because there isn't enough quality tag teams to warrant two sets of titles. But things are looking up for the WWE as well with London & Kendrick, The PitBulls, Cade & Murdoch, and The Highlanders, who I am hoping turn out more like the Sheepherders then the Bushwackers. Now if they were on the one brand, it would make for a much more interesting dynamic for a tag division.
I have high hopes for the future of tag team wrestling both in TNA, WWE, and Tag Team wrestling on a world wide basis. Tag team wrestling adds an interesting dichotomy to any promotion and should be built and preserved in modern day wrestling and not a thing of the past like WCW's 6 Man Tag Division.
Thank You
Matthew James
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